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---CHAPTER 2--- Workplace Woes

Why do we work?

This may sound like a silly question. There is a sense of necessity about work: it is just something we have to do. We need to earn money to buy groceries, pay off the mortgage or pay rent, pay for our children's orthodontic needs, hockey gear, and on and on. Our ancestors had to work to stay alive, literally. If they did not hunt, fish, and grow enough food in the summer, they would starve in the winter.

Farmers understand this sort of work. They do what they need to do each day. For some days this means working long hours to bring in a crop before the rain or frost. Other days there is time to chat with neighbours over the fence. Farmers work with nature — they know that they cannot ignore the weather. Some things cannot be done in the rain so another task is quickly chosen — there is always lots to do.

For most of us, our work is not dependent on nature the way it is for farmers. Most of us do the same work whether it rains or shines. We don't need to look to the sky to decide what to do each day, although we may need to shovel snow from our driveways in order to get to work. Yet working in an office often feels as much a necessity as toiling in a field. We are still working for our survival, though in a more abstract way than our great-grandparents or our agricultural neighbours. We are working to stay afloat, get ahead, be secure. The thought of being without an income terrifies us as much as the prospect of being without food or shelter terrified our forebears. Work provides us with much that we consider essential.

But at a deeper level work offers far more than mere survival. If it were just a matter of making money, we would all compete for the same jobs — the ones that pay the best. But we have a society with thousands of different jobs, some paying well and some paying poorly. People seek work that interests them and fits with who they are, because work is a fundamental part of our identity. We gain satisfaction from our work, not just an income. We experience a sense of contributing to society through our work. Many people pursue higher education because it will help them find jobs that are challenging and that mesh well with their sense of identity. Precisely because work is so highly valued, societally and personally, those without work can feel excluded and discounted.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) referred to a hierarchy of needs that human beings experience, starting with physical needs and going through to the need for self-actualization. Our most basic needs, he said, are for things such as food, water, and safety. We then look for “higher” needs to be fulfilled, such as the need for relationship or belonging, and the need for self-esteem and feelings of worth. Lastly, if these previous needs are met, we seek self-actualization, or a sense of personal fulfilment of our potential. And if that occurs we experience what Maslow called “peak experiences” — deep moments of happiness, love, and understanding; feelings of being intensely alive; a passionate concern for justice and harmony.

Maslow wrote in his classic work Motivation and Personality; “Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What humans can be, they must be” [Maslow 1987, 22, original emphases]. His studies of the workings of the human mind led him to believe that for optimum mental health and well-being, a person's potential had to be tapped. It is not enough simply to feed, clothe, and occupy human beings. Work, therefore, may provide us with the necessities of life, but it can also meet some of our deepest or highest needs, as we reach for our vocation, personal fulfilment, and a sense of peace with ourselves and the world.

Questions

What are your reasons for working?

Which of your needs are being met through your work?

Which are not being met?

Defined by our work

Even those of us lucky enough to have well-paying and fulfilling work have problems keeping it in its place. Work may provide us with the necessities of life and a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment, but it can also take over our lives. And perhaps the problem that besets our work more than anything else is our over-identification with it. We define our selves by the work we do, and thus give it primacy in our lives.

Consider the way we typically introduce ourselves to each other in social settings: “I'm Lucy. I'm a chaplain at the University of Guelph.”… “I'm Fred. I'm a professor of sociology.” It is the language of employment and occupation. Only very unusually would we introduce ourselves by referring instead, for example, to our key relationships: “I'm Lucy. I'm married to David and we have three teenage children.” … I'm Fred. My wife is Susan and we have two wonderful adult daughters.” Similarly, the question, “What do you do?” is often answered with a response not about doing but about being: “I am a teacher.” A teacher becomes who I am, not just a job I do. My work defines me. So I evaluate myself according to that definition, I build or lose my self-esteem in the workplace, and I wonder who I am when the role ends with retirement or redundancy.

Naturally there is a tremendous amount of anxiety around getting and keeping a job, not only because work is the main source of income for most people, but also because of the identity issue. Parents exert pressure on their children to get a job, to “be somebody!” It is as though, without work, we are nobodies. And so work can easily become tyrannical in its emotional — even existential — hold over us.

One of the themes of the popular British movie The Full Monty is the breakdown of male identity in a situation of widespread unemployment. One character, formerly a manager, has been going out every day, apparently to work as usual, but hiding from his wife the fact that he, too, has been made redundant. Without his job he considers himself to be a nobody, ashamed, so all he can do is pretend. Stories abound also of 0those who gave their all to their jobs and then died shortly after retirement, as though the body did not know what to do without work to go to and focus on; or workers who were made redundant and went crazy, bursting into their former workplace armed and ready to kill. Work, then, can meet our material needs and fulfil our need for meaningful self-expression and development, but when it becomes the primary lens through which we see the world and ourselves, it can be a ruthless captor.

Workaholism

Slavery was abolished more than one hundred years ago, but a subtler form of imprisonment has emerged in the modern workplace, which we know as workaholism. Author and poet David Whyte, in his book Crossing the Unknown Sea, refers to this as a post-modern form of serfdom, where there is a crippling lack of time and spaciousness in our working lives, because of our entanglement in a culture that demands an endless cycle of production and consuming [Whyte 2001, 164].

Like an alcoholic, the workaholic is trapped in a pattern of destructive behaviour over which he or she feels there is little or no control. Long hours at work are the norm, with “time management” techniques being used to shoe horn as much as possible into the working day. The pace and stress level of work escalate to the breaking point. The “rock bottom” that the workaholic hits is complete burnout, with physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social collapse. Typically family life breaks down first, as the workaholic spends more and more hours either at work or consumed by work worries, and withdraws from family activities. There may be initial rewards for this — a bigger pay cheque, promotion, the boss's approval. In fact, it has been said that workaholism is the only addiction that is socially sanctioned and rewarded: getting ahead by working around the clock and sacrificing one's personal life is often held up as an admirable path. The toll is brushed under the carpet.

Of course, there have periodically been times in human history when groups of people have had to work very arduously, from the European immigrants who settled in this country to today's emergency workers at disaster sites. But it is a new phenomenon for people in modern society in normal circumstances to be choosing, seemingly, to overwork. In post-World War II Japan, during its technological boom, workaholism became almost a cultural norm, and a new word, karoshi (meaning “death by overwork”), entered Japanese vocabulary, as the up and coming executives, and sometimes even students, worked themselves into the grave or committed suicide on failing to accomplish their goals.

Sam's story

Sam is an executive in a thriving company. He holds an MBA and rose rapidly to his vice-president position. His large salary enables him to own a fine house as well as a cottageand to take expensive vacations with his wife and family. The only problem is that, for the last four years, Sam has not taken more than a couple of days' vacation time in a row. He is just too busy. Even when he does take some time off, he keeps his cell phone with him, and his palm pilot, and his laptop computer, so that he can respond to the urgent and incessant demands of the office.

Sam's family has become accustomed to holidaying without him, and he tells himself that this is for the best. He's poised on one of the top rungs of the ladder; and to become CEO and the best provider he can be, he knows he must make sacrifices.

But Sam is lonely. Sometimes when he gets home late from work, his wife and children are already asleep in bed. He often sits alone in the darkened house drinking a nightcap so that he can unwind and feel better. And he secretly dreams of one day walking. away from the world he knows and starting a new life. But until then, he feels as though the high-rise office building where he works is his prison.

Burnout

Many of us at work today would admit to fitting the “HALT” definition of burnout: we are hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. We are over-eating (or over-drinking) to comfort ourselves, lashing out at colleagues or family members when the elastic of being over-stretched snaps, feeling isolated and alone as we toil ever harder, and suffering from constant fatigue. As noted ealier, sociologist Reginald Bibby asked Canadians what concerned them most in life, and 48% identified not having enough time as their number one problem [Bibby 2002,205]. Worse still, there seems to be no way out. We feel trapped. The very jobs that promised to provide for us and give our lives meaning have us in a stranglehold, because if I am what I do, then ceasing to do threatens the core of my existence. Far from providing our livelihood, work sometimes threatens to squeeze the life right out of us and leave us limp and exhausted rags.

Many employers expect their employees to do what it takes to get the job done. If this means working one hundred-hour weeks, then fine. If it means missing your daughter s piano recital, never mind — there will be other recitals. These expectations are usually not written down anywhere, but new employees quickly learn what it takes to keep their job and advance in the organization. They comply, but often harbour deep resentment. Yet when their turn comes to set expectations and standards, they will often demand the same of others, arguing that if they themselves have had to do this, there's no reason why others can't. And so our work patterns are perpetuated, and the singe of burnout hovers almost visibly in the air.

It may be that reining in the insatiable demands of work and keeping it from absorbing all our energy is one of the quintessential challenges of our time. A spirituality for the workplace must engage with this challenge and help us find the wisdom and courage to do things differently, swimming against the tide of a work-addicted culture. With a perspective that values each one as a person, regardless of income or career standing, we can detach our self-worth from our work just a little, and become freer to step back from the proverbial rat race.

Questions

How many hours a week are you working?

Why?

Downsizing and under-utilization

In the last two decades, in Canada and elsewhere, significant changes in the workplace have occurred, placing new stressors on workers. Some organizations have downsized, no longer employing as many people. Some of the changes have been structural; for example, many large organizations have reduced the number of “levels” between the top position (chief executive officer or president) and the bottom position. In large bureaucratic organizations such as a government agency the structures traditionally resembled a steep pyramid, with many levels of managers, department heads, and vice-presidents between the top and the bottom. By reducing the number of levels from, say, ten or more to three or four, the organization is reducing the number of workers and changes the structure of the organization and the way work is done there. (It is important to note that often the “middle level” positions that are dropped by many organizations are advanced level, managerial positions.)

Let's pause for a moment and consider a question. If an organization drops several levels or layers of managers, what happens to the people who keep their jobs?

Many of them are going to have to do more work — their pre-change work plus the work of other staff who lost their jobs. And many workers will not only have to do more work; they will have to be able to work with less supervision. They will have to make more decisions on their own, take on more responsibility. This isn't all bad. Some workers will relish the added responsibility. Some will thrive in the new workplace. But without a doubt, most employees in today's organizations are finding themselves doing more work and suffering from increased stress and fatigue as a result.

At the same time, under-utilization is a serious problem. It includes unemployment, part-time employment (where full-time is desired), and under-employment. Human knowledge, skills, and imagination — gifts from God — are squandered by under-utilization all too often. Where over-work causes burnout, under-work causes rust-out.

There was a series of advertisements on TV some years ago to encourage giving money to African-American colleges in the US. Each ad was a vignette about an African-American student who might not be able to go to college. The ads ended with the slogan, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” This quotation captures the under-utilization of workers.

The rate of unemployment changes somewhat from year to year, and it varies across regions in Canada, but whatever the rate is, it represents real people who often feel neglected and without value. Since we define each other in terms of what we “do,” people who are unemployed may feel that they do not have an identity. As we experience an ever increasing rate of technological change that continuously alters the workplace, more and more people are likely to experience periods of unemployment. There is dignity in work, and being without work can rob us of our dignity and sense of purpose. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” We need to be equipped to cope with unemployment (expected or unexpected) and not let a period of unemployment define us.

Part-time employment is another form of under-utilization. There are many situations where people desire part-time work and request it from employers, for example, a parent who needs to be home half-days with a child in kindergarten. Another example would be a person who is self-employed but needs to supplement that income with part-time work. The under-utilization aspect occurs when individuals are forced to settle for part-time employment. Many settle for several part-time jobs. Often university students find themselves in this situation. Part-time positions create flexibility for employers, and since part-time or occasional workers typically do not have contracts, they can be fired (and hired back) easily. Part-time workers also do not typically qualify for employee benefits. In essence they become expendable and cheapened. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Under employment is in some ways the worst form of under-utilization of workers. Under employment is hiring people to fill positions that do not require their knowledge and skills. The taxi driver with a PhD is the example that journalists love to describe. The reality is that under-employment is widespread and a true waste of our precious human resource. Sociologists who have studied this inconsistency between job requirements and employees' credentials argue that employers need to increase the complexity of work that, say, college graduates occupy An economist might argue that the problem is really “over-education” and society should produce fewer college graduates if there are not enough jobs that require college degrees. Regardless of one's perspective on the origin of the problem, it is evident that people need to find jobs that are consistent with their education, knowledge, and skills. Being over-qualified for the work individuals are doing can be very discouraging, especially when the long-term prospects are not positive. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Under-utilization has to be addressed from two viewpoints. At the macro level, how can we — through our governments — encourage and support employers and entrepreneurs to create more jobs and jobs that use the knowledge, skills, and imaginations of all our people? At the micro level, how can individuals get themselves out of situations where their knowledge, skills, and imaginations are not adequately employed? We may need to quit a secure job where we are under-employed and find one that uses our talents, despite the strong messages we will undoubtedly receive (both from others and from our own fearfulness) that this is folly. Retaining a job, even a less than ideal one, is generally regarded as more prudent than letting it go in order to look for something more fitting.

A spirituality for the workplace must have something to say about how we can find our rightful place in the world. We are searching for a place where we can engage our skills and experience, our knowledge, imagination, and passion. And we are searching for a place that neither consumes us with over-work nor leaves us bored and discouraged with underwork. We may need to renegotiate our work situation many times, both the externals of what we do and the internals of how we do it. We will need many inner conversations with ourselves (and such conversations are the heart of spirituality) about whether we are in the right place at any given point in our lives. And the answers will relate not to external success or any assumptions about what we should do, but to a personal sense that there is a rightness of fit between what we can offer the world and what work we are engaged in.

Questions

Is there a “rightness of fit” between you and the work you do?

Are burnout or rust-out concerns for you?

The impersonal work world

In our quest for work that fits with our gifts and life situation, the work environment itself may be problematic. Scott Adams's cartoon strip Dilbert exemplifies the cynical, conflict-ridden, fragmented world of work that many of us know. There is an incompetent but powerful boss who is not respected by his employees although they outwardly kow-tow to him. There is the nerdy computer geek, incapable of seeing beyond his techie horizons and socially very inept. And there is Dilbert, the alienated worker who does as little as he can get away with, ridicules the boss behind his back, and suffers the indignities of office power-plays and control issues. Through humour Adams caricatures a work world that is crippled by bureaucracy, stifled by rigid systems of management, and undermined by an absence of trust.

The success of the Dilbert cartoon suggests that many of us recognize this fictitious workplace. It is particularly within large organizations that the dysfunctional characteristics emerge, as hierarchies and regulations are developed to ensure that the jobs get done and employees are treated uniformly. A degree of impersonality enters, which inevitably separates bosses from workers and tends to create and perpetuate an Us and Them mentality. With a high degree of specialization in work now, people are often also working in isolation from their peers. Metaphorically we have moved from the family farm to the typing pool to the office cubicle, and the impersonal modes of communication made possible by email and other electronic media have further eroded human interaction at work.

In one telling cartoon strip, Dilbert's boss has his employees wearing electronic collars, so that he can track their whereabouts in the building at any time. “Once you got used to working in cubicles, like gerbils,” he says, “we knew anything was possible” [Adams 1996, 76]. A common complaint at work is that people feel like rats running faster and faster on wheels, or trapped in the constant performance of repetitive tasks. They may feel obliged to skip lunch breaks in order to get the work done, and a sense of hostility builds up, aimed at those who are requiring this level of output. Managers are in turn under pressure from executives, who are trying to steer their organizations through turbulent economic times with maximum efficiency and profit, and the cycle of resentment and tension continues.

Conflict and criticism

Where community and trust do not flourish in an organization, adversarial positions will often be taken between individuals and between groups almost instinctively. Like our parliamentary system with its government and opposition seats set squarely opposite one another, dysfunctional workplace dynamics deal in conflict and power struggles. And the fallout is cynicism, fatigue, and stress. No organization is immune from the problem of destructive conflict, whether it is a multinational corporation or a convent, unless it consciously works to promote good personal relationships among its members, marked by trust and mutual respect. This is especially true in the touchy areas of expectations, evaluations, and feedback.

Franco's Story

Franco is passionate about his work. He takes his job very seriously, working long hours to accomplish the many tasks he takes on. When asked to accept a new project, Franco rarely says No. Several years ago, Franco's organization was engaged in a strategic planning exercise that was looking at priorities for the short- and long-term. One of the initial activities of the strategic planning process was a survey of the employees to determine the key values of the organization. Franco was asked to lead a task force to conduct the survey and, of course, he said Yes.

The task was complex, with input required from across the organization. Franco's task force conducted the survey and various forums to hear from everyone. They then studied the results and wrote a report. The report was circulated and generated a lot of interest. Franco was pleased to have the work done and felt a great sense of accomplishment. Then things changed. There was widespread criticism of the report. The results were ridiculed. People argued that the survey was not conducted properly and, therefore, the results were wrong. In fact, all that Franco did was to tell members of the organization what they themselves had answered on the survey.

What they were really challenging were the answers of their peers. The people complaining were generally the older employees of the organization who did not listen to the viewpoints of the newer members who now made up the majority. Since they did not listen to the younger employees, the older employees did not recognize these values when they were reported by Franco. Unfortunately, Franco got caught in the middle of this. His report was, in fact, accurate. But Franco took the criticism very personally. He was quite devastated that his work, so carefully done with much consultation, could be viewed as flawed. The conflict wounded him personally and deeply, and the hurt remained for many months.